A journal, of a young man of Massachusetts, late a surgeon on board an American privateer, who was captured at sea by the British in May, eighteen hundred and thirteen and was confined first, at Melville Island, Halifax, then at Chatham, in England, and last at Dartmoor prison : $b Interspersed with observations, anecdotes and remarks, tending to illustrate the moral and political characters of three nations. To which is added, a correct engraving of Dartmoor prison, representing the massacre ofWaterhouse, Benjamin
History
A journal, of a young man of Massachusetts, late a surgeon on board an American privateer, who was captured at sea by the British in May, eighteen hundred and thirteen and was confined first, at Melville Island, Halifax, then at Chatham, in England, and last at Dartmoor prison : $b Interspersed with observations, anecdotes and remarks, tending to illustrate the moral and political characters of three nations. To which is added, a correct engraving of Dartmoor prison, representing the massacre of
Waterhouse, Benjamin
Dartmoor Prison; United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Prisoners and prisons
I cannot answer precisely for the impressions Governor Strong's
speeches and proclamations have made on others, I can only answer for
myself. They very much surprised and grieved me. I was born in the
same county where Mr. Strong resided, and where I believe he has
always lived and I had always entertained a respect for his serious
character, and have, from my boyhood, considered him among the very
sensible men, and even saints of our country; and all my connections
and relations gave their votes for good _Caleb Strong_, on whose
judgment and public conduct, my parents taught me to rely, with as
much confidence as if he had actually been a thirteenth apostle. Just
then what must have been my surprise, on reading his proclamations for
fasts and thanksgivings, and his speeches and messages to the
legislature and his conduct relative to the general government and the
militia; and above all for his strange conduct in organizing a
convention of malcontents at Hartford, in Connecticut. No event in New
England staggered me so much. When we learnt that he proclaimed
England to be "_the bulwark of the holy religion we profess_," I
concluded that it was a party calumny, until I saw its confirmation in
the attempts of his friends to vindicate the assertion. I then
concluded that one of two things must have existed; either Mr. Strong
had become superannuated and childish, or that the English Faction had
got behind his chair of government and under the table of the
counsel-board, and in the hollow panels of his audience chamber, and
completely bewitched our political _Barzilla_. I suspected that gang
of Jesuits, the _Essex Junto_, had put out his eyes, and was leading
him into danger and disgrace. It is undeniable that Governor Strong
has, in his public addresses, sided more with the declared enemy,
Britain, than with his own national government; and that he has said a
great deal tending to encourage the enemy to persist in their demands,
and to pursue the war, than he has to discourage them. It appears, in
truth, that the English consider him in a great measure their friend
and well wisher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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